(Jewish Group) Jewish American History: Louis Brandeis
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (/ˈbrændaɪs/; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish immigrant parents from Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic), who raised him in a secular home.[3] He attended Harvard Law School, graduating at the age of 20 with the highest grade point average in the law school's history. Brandeis settled in Boston, where he founded a law firm (that is still in practice today as Nutter McClennen & Fish) and became a recognized lawyer through his work on progressive social causes.
Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept by writing a Harvard Law Review article of that title, and was thereby credited by legal scholar Roscoe Pound as having accomplished "nothing less than adding a chapter to our law". He later published a book entitled Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It, suggesting ways of curbing the power of large banks and money trusts. He fought against powerful corporations, monopolies, public corruption, and mass consumerism, all of which he felt were detrimental to American values and culture. He also became active in the Zionist movement, seeing it as a solution to antisemitism in Europe and Russia, while at the same time being a way to "revive the Jewish spirit."
When his family's finances became secure, he began devoting most of his time to public causes and was later dubbed the "People's Lawyer". He insisted on serving on cases without pay so that he would be free to address the wider issues involved. The Economist magazine calls him "A Robin Hood of the law." Among his notable early cases were actions fighting railroad monopolies, defending workplace and labor laws, helping create the Federal Reserve System, and presenting ideas for the new Federal Trade Commission. He achieved recognition by submitting a case brief, later called the "Brandeis Brief", which relied on expert testimony from people in other professions to support his case, thereby setting a new precedent in evidence presentation.
In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson nominated Brandeis to become a member of the Supreme Court. His nomination was bitterly contested, partly because, as Justice William O. Douglas later wrote, "Brandeis was a militant crusader for social justice whoever his opponent might be. He was dangerous not only because of his brilliance, his arithmetic, his courage. He was dangerous because he was incorruptible ... [and] the fears of the Establishment were greater because Brandeis was the first Jew to be named to the Court."[4] On June 1, 1916, he was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 47 to 22,[4] to become one of the most famous and influential figures ever to serve on the high court. His opinions were, according to legal scholars, some of the "greatest defenses" of freedom of speech and the right to privacy ever written by a member of the Supreme Court.
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From: THE FIRST AMENDMENT ENCYCLOPEDIA
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856–1941) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Jewish parents who had immigrated from Bohemia after 1848. At age 18, Louis Brandeis enrolled in Harvard Law School, graduating first in his class in 1877. Working as a lawyer in Boston, he became known as the “people’s attorney” for his involvement in social justice movements and representation of workers’ interests. His advocacy in Muller v. Oregon (1908) included the “Brandeis Brief,” in which he employed extensive empirical data to make the case for restricting the hours of labor for women. Appointed by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court in 1916, Brandeis became the first Jewish member of the Court and served as an associate justice until 1939.
Brandeis's stance on free speech evolved
During Brandeis’s tenure, the Court heard a number of important First Amendment cases and began the process of applying the provisions of this amendment to the states as well as to the national government. Brandeis’s stance evolved on issues of free speech from one that upheld governmental restrictions on expression to his concurring opinion in Whitney v. California (1927), which laid out an elegant argument on the virtues of freedom of speech.
Brandeis upheld Espionage Act
Shortly after the United States entered World War I in 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, which criminalized the willful obstruction of the military draft, actions causing “insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny or refusal of duty,” and false statements about the armed forces. The law was amended via the Sedition Act of 1918 to include very broad language that, in effect, outlawed statements criticizing the U.S. government.
Although this sedition act was repealed in 1921, the Supreme Court heard a number of cases that fell under its provisions. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote opinions for the Court in three 1919 cases — Schenck v. United States, Frohwerk v. United States, and Debs v. United States — in which the justices, including Brandeis, unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the Espionage Act. According to Holmes, Congress had the authority to limit political speech to protect against a “clear and present danger.” The Court found that during wartime words — in Schenck’s case a pamphlet urging resistance to the draft — were dangerous and therefore not protected speech. Even if the words did not lead to acts that harmed the United States, the speakers or writers could be penalized for the dangers that their words posed.
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